An alligator lizard that's nearly gone down a king snake's throat bit into its killer, and the standoff began.
When Bryan Snyder took this viral photo back in 2014, it was enough to turn heads, and now it's making the rounds again.
When Snyder was hiking in southern California a couple of years ago he stumbled upon this scene of epic struggle by happenstance. Luckily he had his camera at the ready.
"Although almost the entire lizard had been swallowed, the wily critter was hanging on with its powerful jaws, refusing to accept the inevitable," Snyder said. "It wore the snake's head over its own as if it were a hooded sweatshirt, and cracked an eye open to gaze nonchalantly in my direction. Its attitude seemed to say, 'No big deal. I can keep this up all day if I have to.'"
In a later interview he alluded to the theory that the lizard would astonishingly live to fight another day.
"After a few minutes of my staring and not leaving, the kingsnake did indeed begin to withdraw."
As incredible as it seems, someone even wrote about his original photo on a Reddit post, causing the photo to go viral again.
"Alligator lizard fighting back from the belly of a Kingsnake. The lizard later won and escaped."
It still seems shocking that one reptile that was up to its eyes inside of another could possibly escape, even with a death-lock on its captor. Stranger things have happened, but when it comes to nature, nothing surprises us anymore!
NEXT: WANT TO SEE THE WORLD'S LARGEST ANNUAL GATHERING OF SNAKES?
